The website and app Mint
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is a popular choice. Several of us (myself included) have at least tried it. Mint allows you to categorize your spending, get alerts for when bills are due and even pay them directly.

“It automates pretty much everything,” said Sally French, our social media editor. “I like being able to check in at any point during the month and knowing how much I’ve spent so far, as well as looking at my spending trends over time.”

Reporter Jeffry Bartash said he uses Mint to track his expenses, and he keeps separate savings accounts (including one on PayPal) for specific saving goals.

Courtesy of Mint

Mint includes spending alerts and shows trends over time.

Some people mentioned a few drawbacks with Mint. French said she doesn’t like getting spending alerts when she makes an unusually large payment, such as six months of car insurance. Reporter Kari Paul had a similar complaint; it can be difficult to edit spending categories in some cases, such as when you pay an entire restaurant bill on your credit card and others pay you back in cash or with an app like Venmo
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.

(A spokeswoman for Mint says the service is really designed for monthly budgeting, but it’s possible to manually make changes to spending categories when they aren’t monthly charges. In French’s example, it would be a good idea to set a “savings goal” for the insurance and then pay it; in Kari’s, it’s possible to add money back into the restaurant spending category to offset the temporary large expense. The company adds updates to the service over time, the spokeswoman said, and is trying to incorporate more machine learning.)

The benefits of doing without budgeting apps

But many MarketWatch staffers track their budgets without an app.

Investing reporter and analyst Philip van Doorn said he uses a spreadsheet to balance his checkbook. Personal finance reporter Alessandra Malito said she also uses a spreadsheet, and it’s pretty detailed: She breaks her budgets into segments by paycheck and includes a column for monthly bills, credit card payments, emergency fund savings and savings for specific goals, plus space for “timely” purchases including gifts and nights out.

While health-care reporter Emma Court says because she puts nearly every purchase on a credit card, it isn’t difficult to check her monthly spending to see if it’s below her personal monthly limit. Another MarketWatch colleague said she has a similar system: checking her bank account balance online every day. “Seeing money flow out works as a good psychological tool to curb spending,” she says.

I am not one of the spreadsheet budgeters, but I’m evaluating whether that works for me.

Although I’m a fairly good saver and am experimenting with the automatic saving app Acorns, I more or less follow the budgeting advice of the first personal finance blog I worked for, Money Under 30, which suggests a “simple spending plan” in lieu of a formal, write-down-every-expense budget. It involves calculating your fixed expenses for each month (including paying off loans and deducting automatic savings from one’s paycheck) and then determining what’s left, to designate as a “spending allowance.”

That seems to be in line with a lot of other MarketWatchers’ strategies.“This may sound simplistic, but I basically just try to make sure I’m always spending less than I’m bringing in,” said student-loan and education reporter Jillian Berman.

“I don’t use fancy apps or spreadsheets,” said another MarketWatch colleague. “I just don’t do anything or go anywhere without coupons or discounts.”

What the pros say

Chantel Bonneau, a wealth management adviser for Northwestern Mutual, said a simple budget could categorize spending in three different categories: fixed (things like rent, student loans and groceries), “lifestyle” (the gym and cable, if you have them) and discretionary (shopping and travel). “It can be a 20-minute exercise,” she said. “But if you enjoy tracking things and it’s kind of fun for you, you’ll be OK using something where you’re tracking more specifically.”

Problems with budgeting happen when people don’t follow up with the crucial last step: holding themselves accountable to the budget, whether it’s low- or high-tech, experts say.

“The problem is, people end up ‘treating themselves’ very regularly,” said Greg McBride, the chief financial analyst at the personal finance company Bankrate.com.

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